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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Salesforce Service Cloud

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AService Cloud is a customer service platform that helps businesses manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It provides tools for case management, knowledge base, omni-channel support, automation, and analytics, enabling companies to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.

    $25

    per month

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AZendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.

    $69

    per month per agent

    Pricing
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    Starter Suite
    $25
    per month
    Pro Suite
    $100
    per month per user
    Enterprise
    $165
    per month per user
    Unlimited
    $330
    per month per user
    Agentforce 1
    $550
    per month per user
    Suite Team
    $69
    per month per agent
    Suite Growth
    $115
    per month per agent
    Suite Professional
    $149
    per month per agent
    Suite Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Considered Both Products
    Salesforce
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Zendesk has it's own challenges in terms of Administrator difficulties and a completely different back-end than Salesforce Service Cloud. I would recommend Salesforce Service Cloud if you need a clean database of Companies and Contacts. Zendesk does not excel in overall CRM …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    We were after a robust and very scalable solution, which could be rapidly implemented. Salesforce Service Cloud not only fitted the bill, but it was much easier to source skills and find on-line learning to help achieve our goals. Although the other technologies could have …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Salesforce is lightyears behind Zendesk. You have to be trained as a Salesforce admin to do anything, while Zendesk takes minutes to set up and is actually customer friendly. There are not native telephony options within Salesforce and the tools you use to integrate are …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Zendesk changed their agreements making us unable to continue with them due to our agreements with our customers. SalesForce allowed us to maintain our customer agreements.
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Salesforce had the most flexibility, features and integrations. They were also so tightly integrated in with opportunity management and case management. I love having the ability to create custom objects to solve any kind of business problem. There is also a lot of …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Salesforce Service Cloud has a solid reputation and brand recognition. The interface is user friendly enough to be utilized across an entire company with varying employee tech exposure. Service Cloud was selected due to the integration options with other software companies and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Salesforce Service cloud integrates with its own world-class CRM which enables our agents to work more effectively and efficiently. We already had Salesforce Sales Cloud so it was a really easy transition. It was easy to set up and all our information was already there. The …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    We chose Salesforce Service Cloud because we were already using Sales Cloud.
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Zendesk is great, but it doesn't allow for multiple ticketing channels to be linked to real time clients. Utilizing Service Cloud WITH Salesforce let's us see the full order/asset/tracking history that's occurred historically with buyers and sellers. The workflows are also …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Salesforce Service offers the ability to customize the product to our business needs such as tracking workflow processes. While Zendesk is a good product it is limited to being more of a ticketing system, than a true overall Service application.
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    We chose Service Cloud because of its deep, native integration with Salesforce, unified billing, and for the fact that we didn't have to learn or train on an entirely new platform. These other products were excellent, but for us it was more time and cost effective to use …
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    The chat functionality and the app of Zopim is pretty robust and functional. I do feel like Zopim/Zendesk do have features and a very clean UI that at times does over perform Salesforce.
    Incentivized
    Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
    Salesforce has increased their traction in the SMB space for service with the acquisition of Desk.com. It provides a good entry level solution for customer service and knowledge for less complex organizations. Additionally, it gets them up and running quicker. Without Desk.com, …
    Incentivized
    Zendesk
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Zendesk is more user-friendly than Salesforce Service Cloud, although Salesforce Essentials has very attractive pricing for including both the sales and service components. Freshdesk is a strong alternative, but we ended up going with Zendesk given its industry-leader status.
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    To set up a service cloud for Salesforce, you need much more work and a dedicated person to do it. For Zendesk Suite, you just need a couple of hours and you are done, but again that really depends on where your customer data is stored, if your data is in Zendesk Suite, you are …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Salesforce is far more established but the price tag was too high for our small team. I would be surprised if we didn’t migrate to Salesforce when our team reaches a certain size
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    We have switched from Zendesk to Service Cloud in order to align our support and Sales departments.
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Zendesk is the gold standard and Salesforce is lightyears behind. It is such an inferior product and it's only being used because SF ropes/tricks people into using it because their sales organization is already using SF. Zendesk is so easy to use and Salesforce requires …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Zendesk was a lot more user-friendly than Service Cloud or Desk.com. We ultimately chose Zendesk for that reason. We felt like all of the platforms we were considering were going to be able to help us accomplish our main goal of handling inbound support tickets, but we felt …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    • SugarCRM - limited functionality compared to Zendesk.
    • Salesforce - We also use this. Zendesk has less functionality and is not as easily customizable or flexible, but it is still a good value.
    • ServiceNow - Great for incident management, but just broke out into the CRM realm and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Here are the explanations for my preference of analysis Zendesk Suite to this end:

    Power + Usability: Zendesk Suite has abundant omnichannel coverage, acceptable automation, and decent reporting but does not go all in to full-custom dev mode, so hangs nicely in the space of …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    88%
    Would buy again
    36 Answers
    84%
    Would buy again
    98 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    82%
    Delivers good value for the price
    28 Answers
    82%
    Delivers good value for the price
    84 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    37 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    105 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    81%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    82%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    63 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    24 Answers
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    76 Answers
    Features
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Salesforce Service Cloud and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Salesforce Service Cloud
    8.8
    77 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.8
    154 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets9.475 Ratings9.2153 Ratings
    Expert directory8.553 Ratings8.3102 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications8.663 Ratings8.6106 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation8.260 Ratings8.5104 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission9.375 Ratings9.3153 Ratings
    Ticket response9.174 Ratings9.3152 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Salesforce Service Cloud and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Salesforce Service Cloud
    8.7
    72 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    139 Ratings
    8% above category average
    External knowledge base8.463 Ratings8.5133 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base8.970 Ratings8.5127 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Salesforce Service Cloud and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Salesforce Service Cloud
    8.7
    77 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    9.0
    150 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Customer portal7.954 Ratings9.2121 Ratings
    IVR8.834 Ratings8.659 Ratings
    Social integration8.947 Ratings8.597 Ratings
    Email support9.276 Ratings9.4147 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration8.866 Ratings9.2112 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score9.7 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score7.1 out of 10
    Front
    Score7.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (83 ratings)
    9.0
    (192 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    6.2
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (12 ratings)
    8.9
    (65 ratings)
    Availability
    9.5
    (28 ratings)
    8.6
    (13 ratings)
    Performance
    8.6
    (7 ratings)
    8.0
    (10 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (20 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.9
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (18 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.3
    (3 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Salesforce Service CloudZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Salesforce
    It is a helpful tool, but it can be a bit cumbersome to manage. It is also a bit expensive, but we already use CRM for Salesforce and it is convenient to be able to immediately tag contacts and accounts when the tickets come into the system and tie them directly to the account. I do know an integration with Jira is possible (we use Jira internally for our engineering team to escalate issues) but it is not configured right now so managing the connection between support tickets and Jira tickets is manual and hard to keep up with
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Salesforce
    • Allows us to make changes quickly and with relative ease
    • Can be flexible enough to use among several teams who do very different work
    • Salesforce in general provides SO much training that anyone on the team can skill up and help maintain the system
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
    • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
    • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Salesforce
    • There is a slight scope for error, but sometimes it has a heavy impact. So this can be improved.
    • Costing is high.
    • Maintenance is more.
    • Expertise is required for implementation.
    • The number of communication messages have some limit per organisation account.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
    • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Salesforce
    Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Salesforce
    I had Salesforce experience prior to using Service Cloud which made it a little easier to learn and navigate, but overall my team (some who had no Salesforce experience) caught on very quickly and found Service Cloud to be easy to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Salesforce
    Salesforce's Trust Center clearly communicates occasional issues to anyone who subscribes, down to an organization's cloud instance. Bundled sandboxes ease updates, and seasonal upgrades are seamless, scheduled well in advance with plenty of information about what's coming. Support agents have noticed intermittent Omni-Channel disconnects due to internet connections, and these are clearly notified.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Salesforce
    The Salesforce Service Cloud generally has very good performance, however the overall new Lightning user experience can bring that down. For example, if you have too many tabs open, then it can take a while for the Lightning UI to load. This UI is probably not well equipped to handle loading of all of that information at once, but Users tend to leave their tabs open all day long. It can also be fickle depending on which browser you use, what extensions you have installed, and whether you've cleared your cache. This can be the downfall with any software as a service though, not just Salesforce
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Salesforce
    Salesforce offers support, although it generally gets routed to overseas support teams first, and once they are unable to help, it gets escalated up the chain to higher tiers. Frequently, the answer back from support is that there is no native solution, and we either have to turn to the AppExchange for some solution provided by another developer, or custom build our own solution.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Salesforce
    Our in-person training was provided by our implementation partner and it was quite good. This was in part because we were already working with them and so it naturally leant itself to a good training relationship. And because they were building our customizations and configuring things, they could then provide training on those things naturally.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Salesforce
    Trailheads are great but it was often unclear what actually applied to our organization. This made it difficult to get a whole lot out of it. Part of it is that because the basic Salesforce features didn't quite work for us, we had to add customizations, which then nullified a lot of the training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Salesforce
    I would go through an implementation very differently knowing what I know now. It was difficult coming from systems we liked in post-sales service and having to adapt to the clunky and underwhelming feature set in Salesforce. I would trim back our expectations
    Incentivized
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    Zendesk
    I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

    The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Salesforce
    Salesforce service cloud is more configurable than Zendesk and Freshdesk. It has its own inbuilt AI chatbot also which further improves service agent efficiency. Salesforce is more integration agnostic and has pre-built connectors with multiple 3rd party systems. However, in terms of pricing it is priced at a premium compared to the other solutions
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Salesforce
    The product has scaled up with our company growth just fine. No issues here other than slowness in clicking around and running reports
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Salesforce
    • Because this is a cloud service, the security, implementation framework and feature list is very mature and you don't have to develop these during implementation.
    • The larger the implementation programme the better the licensing arrangements
    • Free developer toolkit for proof of concepts or showcasing features
    • Limited to annual subscription model
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
    • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
    • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Salesforce Service Cloud Screenshots

    Screenshot of Workflows and OrchestrationScreenshot of Service CatalogScreenshot of Contact Center

    Zendesk Suite Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations